Bank of America tells gun manufacturer it no longer wants their business?

posted at 10:26 pm on April 20, 2012 by Allahpundit

I’m thinking there has to be more to this story, not because I doubt that there are lefty corporate execs who find guns and gun owners loathsome but because from a business standpoint this is the highest of high insanity. My strong suspicion from years of following news on the right is that gun enthusiasts are the single most passionate interest group in conservative America. The barest whiff of some form of new regulation becomes an instant sensation online. If I ran a business they’d be the very last lobby I’d want to cross, just because they’re ready, willing, and able to organize a mighty effective boycott. Surely BOA, a company that’s headquartered in a southern city, knows the shinolastorm they’d be inviting if they pulled something like this.

And yet, here we are.

McMillan Fiberglass Stocks, McMillan Firearms Manufacturing, McMillan Group International have been collectively banking with Bank of America for 12 years. Today Mr. Ray Fox, Senior Vice President, Market Manager, Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking came to my office. He scheduled the meeting as an “account analysis” meeting in order to evaluate the two lines of credit we have with them. He spent 5 minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last 5 years and have become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories.

At this point I interrupted him and asked “Can I possible save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath? What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer what my business.”

“That is correct” he says…

“So you are telling me this is a politically motivated decision, is that right?”

Mr Fox confirmed that it was. At which point I told him that the meeting was over and there was nothing let for him to say.

Any reason to think that BOA really might make a politically motivated decision to cut ties with gun businesses? Well, maybe. Read Bob Owens’s post at PJM for lots of interesting background on McMillan and BOA:

Bank of America was the recipient of well over 100 billion dollars in federal money. They are also one of just two vendors processing payments for Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, employing a system that disables safeguards against illegal foreign donations. Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the site of the Democratic Nation Convention in September.

This is at least the third time Bank of America has implemented a discriminatory policy against gun manufacturers. In early 2001, a scandal erupted over the bank’s attempt to discriminate against another Arizona-based company. The resulting public outrage forced a reversal of the policy.

In 2010, Bank of America attempted a similar action, and was again forced to “clarify” their position…

During the 2010 midterm elections, former DNC chairman and ex-Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine secured a $15 million revolving line of credit at BofA and then finagled another $17 million loan from the taxpayer-bailed-out bank. According to Federal Election Commission records, BofA accepted as collateral the DNC’s donor mailing list. Yep, its donor mailing list for $32 million in loans. As investigative reporter Richard Pollock asked at the time: “What message does a largely unsecured $32 million credit line for the Democratic Party send to thousands of cash-starved small businesses across the nation who can’t secure any credit even with tangible assets?”…

Bank of America is to sweetheart loans and Democratic Party payoffs as Paula Deen is to sugar and bacon grease:

– In 2008, BofA’s political action committee gave its biggest contributions to Barack Obama totaling $421,000.

Long story short: If the Democratic leadership needed a favor from BOA, the bank might be in a position where it felt obliged to comply even at the risk of some sort of political backlash on the right. And it’s true that BOA will have a major presence at the convention this year — as noted above, it’s being held in a stadium sponsored by the bank, in the city where BOA is headquartered — so in theory, there may be some pressure to divest from businesses that aren’t simpatico with the Democratic message. But to believe that is to ignore electoral reality. There’s a reason Obama, Pelosi, and Reid never went hard after guns when they had the numbers in Congress: It’s a potentially lethal issue for them in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, where there are blue-collar gun owners who are willing to vote Democratic for economic reasons so long as they have no more important reason not to. If you think I’m exaggerating, go read this recent op-ed by Ohio’s Democratic former governor, Ted Strickland, attacking Romney on guns from the right. The last thing they’d want before the election, when they’re trying to pick off working-class whites in rural areas from Romney, is to throw a gun-grab scare into them. I think it’s more likely, actually, that BOA will get an angry call from a top Democrat telling them to knock this off than it is that they’ve gotten a call telling them to cut ties with gun owners. And no, there surely isn’t any pressure from the lefty base squeezing Democrats on this. They looked the other way while Obama tore up the War Powers Act in order to go to war in Libya. If they’re willing to tolerate that, do you really think they care who BOA does business with?

Exit question: What’s really going on here, then? Does someone in BOA management hate gun manufacturers so much that they’re willing to invite a boycott over it?

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Banks and credit card processing companies have long been hostile to gun vendors. The credit card processors in particular have cut off firearms vendors.

It’s not really “political” in the sense of doing the bidding of particular politicians or parties. It’s a sort of generalized reluctance on the part of the banks to do business with an industry they regard as icky.

Romney (and I) supported TARP as they were sold to Congress at the time, not how they were implemented in practice. Bush used half the money to stop the bleeding and handed the other half to Obama. Obama blew it.

Exit question: What’s really going on here, then? Does someone in BOA management hate gun manufacturers so much that they’re willing to invite a boycott over it?

Shades of Fast and Furious! Could it be another attack against our 2nd. Amendment rights?

You betcha!

What does Romney think:

On July 1, 2004, Romney signed a permanent state ban on assault weapons, saying at the signing ceremony for the new law, “Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts. [snip] The same law also modified some other aspects of general firearms licensing regulations.[92]

Mitt Romney.In New Hampshire, he was asked his view on the Second Amendment. He responded that he had been a hunter “pretty much all my life.” Later, red-faced aides of Romney had to admit that Romney had never had a hunting license, and under further questioning, Romney acknowledged that his “lifetime of hunting” was having shot at some birds during a Republican governors meeting during a fund-raising event and maybe shooting at “small varmints” when he was seventeen with his cousin.

Exit question: What’s really going on here, then? Does someone in BOA management hate gun manufacturers so much that they’re willing to invite a boycott over it?

It means that in free markets, companies are not profit-maximizers as theory dictates, but follow the dictates of whomever runs them, and that such people are capable of having preferences that put politics ahead of profit.

Duh.

…It also means that economic theory is a ridiculous generalization that has little in the way of application to reality.

I own a firearms accessory business and it is very difficult to find financial and web services that will accept our business. It’s such a routine problem that I mention my line of work early in discussions.

Coincidentally, I was just looking for a different payment gateway for my website. The vast majority of gateways would not accept our business,as a matter of specific policy. I was bemused to discover that nothing in their policies would prevent them from working with abortion clinics.

My worst experience was with PayPal. I had applied to PayPal Merchant Services to provide my company’s credit card processing. In response to my application, they froze my and my wife’s personal PayPal accounts for violations of “Terms of Service”. When I pointed out that applying to the service doesn’t violate the Terms of Service, I was given a chance to appeal. The appeal process was me being put on hold for 30 seconds before the customer service person responded back that my appeal had been denied. PayPal froze funds related to used skiing gear that I had sold. I and my wife still can’t use PayPal.

My libertarian side says let them run their business as they see want and we gun-folks will take our business elsewhere. Kudos to McMillan for bringing the issue to light.

I’m not surprised in the least. It became apparent that the crooks were (are) running that bank.
My entire family, as well as our businesses, left their bank two years ago and never looked back.

Of course our decision to leave them were over them trying to screw us over. It was like they were working directly with the Obama regime.

Lets take a look at a few of their more public policies:
~ Issuing credit to illegals without a SS number.
~ Gouging their customers with high ATM charges, which they backed off on, then embed mystery fees for other services. Doesn’t seem smart especially when the return on their customer’s hard earned Cash is at an all time low low during an ongoing recession.
~ Now Anti Gun (I wonder if they’ll stop doing business with budding pot shops out west?).

You cannot make them fail. Taxpayers have their back. They do not need customers when they have the fed giving them .01% loans that they then buy treasuries paying far more with and have unlimited borrowing power with. It is like a perpetual money machine.

You cannot make them fail. Taxpayers have their back. They do not need customers when they have the fed giving them .01% loans that they then buy treasuries paying far more with and have unlimited borrowing power with. It is like a perpetual money machine.
astonerii on April 20, 2012 at 10:41 PM

“Perpetual” until China quits buying our worthless paper.
Who is John Galt on April 21, 2012 at 7:14 AM

BOA – Earning your business.
-
* Tried to cash a travelers check at the largest BOA branch in Seattle. I had 3 forms of photo ID including my passport. BOA wouldn’t cash the check. A small restaurant nearby did it without hesitation.
* My kid needed something notarized at a BOA branch where she had an account. They wouldn’t do it. “They didn’t want to accept the liability”. (huh?) We had it notarized elsewhere – no problem.
* My Visa card uses BOA. My local BOA branch accepted my check for a $3,000 credit card bill but wouldn’t cash a $10 rebate check.
-

I got rid of all my relations with BoA last month when I fought a “battle” with them over getting Insurance money check signed to finish repairs of damaged home from a year ago. Their mortgage dept is pathetic in my opinion, and the customer service was ranked as worst in nation of large companies. Check out the complaints about the mortgage claims and their fights with not getting monies to customers for repairs of homes damaged. They are ruthless.

Bank of America sucks. They pander to illegal aliens, and have lousy customer service. They should call themselves the Bank of anti-America. No wonder they’re so in love with Baraka Obama and his anti-American world view.

So the directors of Bank of America have decided to dump a customer during a major recession that does business in one of the few areas of our economy that has enjoyed a significant increase in business since 0bama was elected?
Since I refused to business with BoA years ago, I cannot participate in a boycott of them now – but I’ll sure be looking at companies that do business with them, and let those business know that they have lost my business because of their association with BoA.
Put that in you gun and shoot it!

My 12 year business relationship with BOA ended when a local branch manager refused to let me withdraw a $50,000 wire transfer from a client in New Zealand because he “did’t like my signature” but now I’m thinking it was because when he asked for extra picture identification I produced my Licensed Carry Permit! To top it all off even though the teller told him I was in there a couple times a week making deposits he told me “get out of my bank.” I told hi I was leaving but my money was leaving with me. I did and it did and it resides along with our other two businesses in another more friendly bank.

Yet another reason that I’m glad that I cut any ties to B.O.A. ten years ago.
Local credit unions or locally owned small banks are the only way to go these says. They haven’t forgotten that we are customers first and foremost. Bad customer service yields loss of customers.

Bank of America is a awful bank. I had to deal with them on my Grandmother’s behalf and it was a nightmare. Just doing basic stuff like depositing money into her account was a struggle. They are the rudest and most inept bank I have ever seen in my life. They went out of their way to frighten her at every chance (she had over $100,000 with them). Thankfully she decided to get a new bank, which turned into another struggle with BOA.

I have never heard any good experiences with them. Remember these are the same folks who tried to foreclose on a house that did not even have a mortgage with BOA, in fact the house had no mortgage at all!

McMillan will be better off in the long to get away from that sinking ship.I hope the U.S. government, and that includes Republicans, don’t bail them out when they finally do go south….

Damien 1967 there was more to it than that. Three picture ID’s and positive identification by several tellers didn’t deter this guy because he was new at the branch and didn’t know me personally. What he should have done was to ask for me to “help him” through the process and not be belligerant. BOA does not have any “people skills” test for branch managers to pass I guess. When he said my signature didn’t look like the original I said I didn’t look like I did 12 years earlier either. A call to the Charlotte office was made and we got our money from there but the experience left me less than enthusiastic about BOA. Perhaps the Permit to Carry a Concelaed Weapon had an effect or not but its an interesting discussion. Perhaps because the guy was barely 5 feet tall had something to do with his attempt at projecting authority. Whatever the case it was bad business and they lost our business.

I think I’ll open an account with Bank of America just so I can close it in disgust!

Oddly, I have our mortgage with them and had just gotten off the phone with a re-finance manager when I read the story on HA. I emailed him a link to the story and told him that we cannot proceed with the refinance if BofA treats its customers this way. You have to take a stand, no matter how silly or senseless it may appear. It does matter.

Describes BofA perfectly. We had all of our accounts closed with them in 2011 and I’ll never look back. We do still have one cc with them that we pay off each month.
They should have been allowed to go bankrupt and I honestly wait for a day they fail.

Exit question: What’s really going on here, then? Does someone in BOA management hate gun manufacturers so much that they’re willing to invite a boycott over it?

Since barry and the nasties he has surrounding him in dc obviously respect the Constitution and do things as intended by our Founders and nearly 250 years of precedent it couldn’t really be that they are trying to implement thier agenda any way they can?

Hey all you “It Can’t Happen Here”ers, it is happening here. This is what fascism looks like and authoritarianism is right down the road. Better get armed and supplied now because that door may close soon.

We left BofA in summer 2009 like many others. They were smug about it. “Why are you leaving us?” I told them flat out. They smugly smiled, like it was OK because they didn’t want my “type” at their institution. Our local credit union rocks – fast, friendly, cheap. Not as convienient, but worth it.

angryed on April 21, 2012 at 12:13 AM
Me too, and I am having problems getting my husband to agree to the change. He thinks I am a political nut (I have already boycotted Kraft foods for myself mostly). I need an angle. THe gun one isn’t enough.

Can anyone recommend a bank with a great bill pay website?

earlgrey133 on April 21, 2012 at 12:16 AM

I’m using Wells Fargo these days. They’re ok, I guess. However, I do know an excellent divorce attorney.

Don’t be a dumbass. Because of a deluge of accounts defaulting and costing credit card companies money, they are passing off the cost to the remaining customers. I had a CC with BOA and was never late on making payments. For absolutely no fault of my doing, they raised my interest rate from 7.99% to 15.99%. Amex did the same.

Too bad you’re not sitting next to me. I’d hand you a nickel so you could go buy a clue.

fullogas on April 21, 2012 at 1:54 AM

So it was a business decision BOA made to recoup money they were losing, If you think it’s unfair you shouldn’t have agreed to interest rate increases at their discretion when you signed up. If you don’t like it don’t do business with them. Grow up.

They looked the other way while Obama tore up the War Powers Act in order to go to war in Libya. If they’re willing to tolerate that, do you really think they care who BOA does business with?

Yes, but…what Obama does and what BOA does are two extremely different things. The Dems have to look the other way for Obama. As for BOA, the Dems can distance themselves from BOA and say they don’t necessarily completely agree but it is BOA’s decision. The Dems can’t afford to lose their gun control/anti-gun base either. So yeah, they will not go after BOA on this and will ignore it as much as possible. There’s lots of room under that bus.

Exit answer: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” is an axiom of Conservatism, and there’s always another bank down the street.

BUT, replace ‘gun manufacturer’ with ‘homosexual’, or ‘Muslim’ and you can see clearly where this refuse service concept breaks down – except when it pertains to violations of public safety or banking regulations.

Plessy v. Ferguson was long ago struck down. The Civil Rights was made law in 1964. These dealt specifically with race, creed, and ethnicity, etc., but that concept of equal access and treatment has been interwoven in the fabric of precedence for several generations.

It seems to me it’s Liberals who seek first to launch into spittle flecked tirades over discrimination and demand a government solution, so it seems odd for a BIG BANKER type who’s cozy with Liberals to speak openly about discrimination against a particular customer at a public business.
What do banking regulations have to say about refusing service outside of the obvious violations of public safety or sound banking principles?

It was BoA that foreclosed on a house in Florida. The owners had paid cash for the house, and had never had a mortgage on it. Owners proved in their case in court, and BoA was ordered to pay all of the owners legal fees. BoA stalled, and ultimately refused to pay. So the owners contacted the local sheriff, provided the necessary documentation, and foreclosed on the BoA branch. Sheriff came in, padlocked the front door, and started removing computers, etc from the branch. BoA then promptly payed what they owed.

It may not mean much, but maybe it’s time for me to find a new bank. I’ve been ticked off at B of A for a while now. This may be the last straw. Perhaps it better to bank locally, at a smaller institution.

We conservatives don’t use our economic power the way liberals do! We need to know about liberal companies and vote with our wallets. My partner is willing to create a site that would list liberal companies – and why we conservatives should avoid them. Likewise, we can know about conservative companies and spend our dollars there. He doesn’t want to spend the time and money to build this site unless there is reasonably strong interest.

In the 1940′s schools in CA had “Bank Day”. We could bring in whatever funds we could spare and deposit them in an account set up for each kid. Did not matter is it was just a few penny’s, BOA did not have a minimum amount. What a downfall from then to now.

Exit question: What’s really going on here, then? Does someone in BOA management hate gun manufacturers so much that they’re willing to invite a boycott over it?

This is less about BofA than it is about the FDIC. Since 2009, the FDIC has become increasingly out-of-control. Federal regulators use the FDIC as a weapon against “disfavored” businesses and individuals. This includes encroachment on other regulatory bodies.

Under the guise of monitoring an institution’s “Risk Profile,” the regulators identify “disfavored” or simply “high risk” clients and force the bank to terminate the banking relationship.

The actions are NEVER put into writing. Usually the directives are delivered over the phone (any whiff of the call being recorded and it is terminated immediately). Nearly any business move contemplated by the bank requires regulatory approval (from the small; opening or closing a branch office; to the large, accessing Fed Funds). Failure to comply with these “Risk Mitigation Directives” can stall all sorts of business operations.

Further, there is no avenue for appeal or oversight. A business associate who ran into one of these directives had his children’s and sisters banking relationships terminated as well.

Fighting these directives are pointless and the business would rather comply than deal with the grief that can be wrought by the regulatory bodies. It is a VERY ugly situation.

This is less about BofA than it is about the FDIC. Since 2009, the FDIC has become increasingly out-of-control. Federal regulators use the FDIC as a weapon against “disfavored” businesses and individuals. This includes encroachment on other regulatory bodies.

Under the guise of monitoring an institution’s “Risk Profile,” the regulators identify “disfavored” or simply “high risk” clients and force the bank to terminate the banking relationship.

The actions are NEVER put into writing. Usually the directives are delivered over the phone (any whiff of the call being recorded and it is terminated immediately). Nearly any business move contemplated by the bank requires regulatory approval (from the small; opening or closing a branch office; to the large, accessing Fed Funds). Failure to comply with these “Risk Mitigation Directives” can stall all sorts of business operations.

Further, there is no avenue for appeal or oversight. A business associate who ran into one of these directives had his children’s and sisters banking relationships terminated as well.

Fighting these directives are pointless and the business would rather comply than deal with the grief that can be wrought by the regulatory bodies. It is a VERY ugly situation.

I just bought a new car. Despite the rather sizable down-payment on it (plus I opted for the rebate which I applied to the principle cost), I had to finance the balance. I went with BofA to finance the balance since the interest rate they offered me was the lowest offer made. They beat my credit union by .3% so I went with BofA. I had some slight misgivings, at first, about using BofA to finance but the APR was just too dang sweet. Well, now my misgivings are solidly in the ‘SCREW YOU BofA’ column.

After I already bought the car my credit union recontacted me and offered to ‘match’ BofA’s APR. I declined since everything was already done and I didn’t want to go through the hassle just for a matching APR. It was too late and while I fully support my credit union they wouldn’t go less. Then they called me one last time and said they’d match the APR and waive all rewrite fee’s and whatnot. I still declined but they said they would hold the offer open until the end of April.

BAM! It’s 6 more business days left until April 30th. I’m going to my credit union first thing Monday morning and dumping BofA’s financing. It will be more than worth the hassle to dump those lecherous scum and refinance with the same APR and waived fee’s. I’m sworn off BofA for life now.

Heck yeah, there would be a lot of interest. I’ve already sworn off of movie theaters, GM cars (which were always our automaker), MSM TV, most TV in general. Won’t use Progressive insurance or GEICO, and am ready to forego Coca-Cola, which makes me very, very sad.

We conservatives don’t use our economic power the way liberals do! We need to know about liberal companies and vote with our wallets. My partner is willing to create a site that would list liberal companies – and why we conservatives should avoid them. Likewise, we can know about conservative companies and spend our dollars there. He doesn’t want to spend the time and money to build this site unless there is reasonably strong interest.

There is more to this story than meets the eye. Dems on the lower level have been hassling ranges under State Environmental laws and noise regulation laws as part of an overall strategy to get rid of the public’s guns.

Opportunity: An 85 year old range in my Area (Kitsap Rifle and Revolver club) got the axe, being forced to “temporarily” (6 months so far) suspend shooting till a higher level judge can remove the restriction due to “noise regulations”. Several other have been hit with expensive range modification requirements.

Political: The Justice Department is caught selling guns in bulk and illegally to intermediaries of Drug Armies in Mexico to set up the idea of “American gun trafficking” in a move against American Gun Manufactures and Stores.

Social: Travyon incident is an attack by a teen thug on a block watch captain, but astonishingly the focus of the News Media and Democrats is on “Stand your ground laws” and the right of Self Defense. This after over two hundred mass attacks against Whites in 2011 as documented in the book “White girl Bleeds A Lot”.

Expense: The EPA makes a move against lead in ammo with the intention of a total ban, while Homeland Security purchases 450 million rounds of lead jacketed 40 S&W and more in .223. The cost of ammo soars.

All these and many more examples are “Under the radar” moves to hinder the sport of shooting, to harm the gun manufactures who make guns, to hinder the ability to go to a range to shoot, to drive up the cost of shooting, to intimidate those who carry for defense and finally a direct economic attack on shooters. This in the face of an increasing threat of riots by blacks.

Once is Coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is Enemy Action.

I have a BofA Mastercard that I use for everything because of the the cash back(1%). I never pay them interest and I only collect my points when they give me an extra 25% cash, 300 points = 375 bucks. I’ve been doing it for years. I always feel like I’m sticking it to them. Question for some one in the know: Am I making them lose money or by using the card are they earning fees and such from vendors that makes them come out ahead in the long run?

While I am sure some on the left side of the political spectrum applaud BofA’s policy, which ties into their own political goals, actions like this are indeed a double edged sword.

The Constitution is not an ala carte menu. All rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights carry the same weight. No one right is superior to another, being endowed by our creator.

So if a government contractor (by virtue of FDIC insurance), which has received billions in taxpayer dollars due to mismanagement,can impose significant barriers to the exercise of any one of those freedoms, what is stopping actions involving freedoms of speech, voting, religion, etc.?

Would there not be public outrage if BofA adopted a policy of not allowing those of the Islamic faithaccess to their banking services? Or refusing to bank with those who had voted for a Democratic President? Or someone who has involved their Fifth Amendment Rights against self incrimination?

BofA has taken foothold on a very slippery slope. When politics of thos nature drive business policy, it creates a very dangerous precedent and aids and abets the erosion of our Constitutional Rights.

For all the folks who think obama hasn’t or won’t do anything in terms of gun control, well looky here, that skinny bast**ds hands are all over this. Thats how deep he can get in the subtle ways of destroying the second amendment. Conservatives better be awake on Nov 6, this is going to get really uggggly.